Even before ‘Rebel Moon: Part One- A Child Of Fire’ from writer/director Zack Snyder was available for general audiences to watch on Netflix, the critics were lambasting it and telling us it was terrible. However, now that it’s available, audiences can see for themselves just how wrong the critics are. This should not surprise anyone, though, as critics and audiences are rarely in agreement on anything.
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Top critics like Richard Roeper and A.A. Dowd were united in putting the movie down, among numerous other critics. Roeper wrote, “Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire” immediately announces its presence as a giant mound of derivative fertilizer in the opening moments…” Dowd followed, “The problem with Rebel Moon is that it’s a pastiche leeched of joy, a Star Wars depressed by Snyder’s delusions of grandeur.”
Do these criticisms have merit, though? Roeper indicates that it’s derivative, and, while it’s true Zack Snyder originally pitched it as a Star Wars story, it has a freshness to it that has been lacking in all recent Star Wars films and television projects, save for Rogue One and Andor. Dowd’s assertion that it is a “pastiche leeched of joy” is hardly fair either. Sure, the tone is dark, but so is the tone of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and Rebel Moon has far better and more coherent storytelling.
Another indicator of just how disconnected from reality the critics are is how big the divide is between the audience score and the critics’ score. As of December 22, the critics’ score sits at 22% on Rotten Tomatoes, while the audience score is 72%. As an example of how different audiences see it, one audience member, Richard K, wrote the following: ‘Yet another example of how ‘critics’ just simply don’t matter. They are obsolete. The movie was a joy from start to finish. The heavy influence from things like Warhammer 40,000 only adds to this love letter to science fiction. This is the last Jedi we should have had.’
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This brings us back to Roeper’s “derivative” comment. Is it true that Zack Snyder draws on previous influences, including Seven Samurai, but also Star Wars and other elements? Certainly, but it’s also true that George Lucas also borrowed elements from Akira Kurosawa, as well as old serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.
Every beloved story draws on storytelling elements that go back to ancient times. Joseph Campbell wrote extensively about this in books such as The Hero With A Thousand Faces and other works. George Lucas has acknowledged the universal storytelling motifs and his use of the “Hero’s Journey” in his creation of Star Wars. He stated in an interview with Bill Moyers, “When did Star Wars, I consciously set about to re-create myths and the classic mythological motifs… I’m telling an old myth in a new way.”
One could argue that’s what all storytelling is. Telling old myths in new ways. George Lucas understands this, and with Rebel Moon it appears Zack Snyder does as well. Is Rebel Moon perfect? Far from it. The biggest issue is that some of the characters are not well-developed. This is not as big an issue as it’s made out to be, though. While twenty more minutes of character development would certainly have been welcome (and we will likely get it in the R-rated director’s cut), Rebel Moon still manages far more character development than any of the Star Wars films in the Disney era, including Rogue One, and does so through concise dialogue rather than lengthy exposition.
There are a couple of voice-overs in flashback scenes, where it might have been better to make the flashback scenes more fleshed out, but even discounting those, we learn far more about who Kora is in Rebel Moon with just a few minutes of dialogue than we learn about Rey Palpatine in the entire Star Wars sequel trilogy.
Is Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon perfect? Not at all. Is it better than all the current films, television shows, and TV specials coming out in the Star Wars, Star Trek, and Doctor Who franchises in the past few years? Absolutely.
What do you think of Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon on Netflix? Leave a comment and let us know.
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Zzz 💤
It doesn’t matter when everybody is getting an F. Rebel Moons F might be a little point percentage but it’s still failing. So who cares when I can spend my time better by watching most any movie from any Asian country or Bollywood.